论合同英语的语言特征大学本科毕业论文.doc

本科毕业论文

中文题目： 论合同英语的语言特征
外文题目: A Comment on Linguostylistics of Contract English

院 系 国际商学院
专 业 英语（国际经济与贸易)
年 级 2011级
学 号 2011020641217
学 生 杨兰
指导教师 薛兰华
结稿日期

四川外国语大学重庆南方翻译学院教务处制
2015年 5月 4日填

论合同英语的语言特征
摘要：本文旨在阐述英文合同语言特性,首先本文旨在分类将英文合同分为三类:传统的合同、正式的合同以及现代的合同。三类合同在语言特征上存在鲜明差异,也反映了英文合同的发展趋势。
传统合同英语可能是最正式的英语合同和拥有许多语言特性例如极限长度的句子有时甚至几个段落是由一个句子组成,缺乏或没有标点符号的,使用了成对的同义词,词汇冗余、重复和省略被大量运用。所以其语言特征风格的传统是正式的、精确的和保守的。
正式合同与传统合在语言特征方面拥有很多共性,同时也有不少差异,其拥有大量与短句子搭配的长句子,极限长度的句子被大量运用,但却排斥了成对的近义词。正式合同英语具有正式、准确、明确的特征。
现代合同在语言特征上与传统合同与正式合同有着明显的区别,其主要采用短句子,有时甚至用短语来充当句子,许多描述性以及规范性的形容词和副词都被英语的现代合同中,大量非谓语性动词被当做后置修饰,现代合同的语言特征是精确、明了和简洁。
本文还探讨了对于传统合同和正式合同的解释方法,并且预测了英文合同的未来发展趋势。

关键词：语言特征；传统合同；现代合同 ；正式合同

A Comment on Linguostylistics of Contract English
Abstract
This paper is aimed at expounding the linguostylistic features of the contract English．First it is designed to classify the English contracts into three kinds：the traditional,the formal and the modern．
The traditional contract English may be the most formal of all English varieties and possess many lingual features such as extreme length of a sentence sometimes,even several paragraphs are constituted by one sentence dearth or absence of punctuation pervasion of archaic and big words，employment of special terms,and paired synonyms,redundance of expressions,repetition of words,omission of articles and so on．The lingual styles of the traditional are formal,precise and conservative．
The formal contract English resembles the traditional contract English in many ways,but differs a lot．It owns a great proportion of long sentences but mixed them with some short ones．It holds many archaic and big words but rejects paired synonym．It develops the section specially for definition and double way to indicate numbers．The lingualstyles of the formal contract English is formal,precise and clear．
The Modern Contract English is quite different from the traditional and formal contract English .It accommodates mostly short sentences,and even phrases that act as sentences,some descriptive and subjective adjectives and adverbs may find their way into the modern contract．It shows a fondness for infinite verbs as post modifiers.The lingual styles of the modern contract English are precise,clear and concise．
This paper also provides an approach to comprehension of the traditional and formal contracts and predicts the tendency of the contract Eng1ish styles．

Key words：Linguostylistics ；Traditional Contract ；Formal Contract； Modern Contract
Acknowledgements
First and foremost,I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor,,both for his intellectual guidance and for his warm and constant encouragement during the process of writing this thesis. With patience and prudence,he labored through drafts of this thesis and pointed out defects in my theorizing. Therefore,I owe all the merits in this thesis,if any,to him,though I am fully aware that the thesis might still contain some mistakes,for which I bear the whole responsibility.
My cordial and sincere thanks go to all the teachers in the Department of English,whose interesting and informative courses have benefited me a lot during my college years. The profit that I gained from their profound knowledge,remarkable expertise and intellectual ingenuity will be of everlasting significance to my future life and career.
I am also very grateful to my classmates,who have given me a lot of help and courage during my stay in the University and throughout the process of writing this thesis.
Last but not the least,big thanks go to my family who have shared with me my worries,frustrations,and hopefully my ultimate happiness in eventually finishing this thesis.

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Contents
中文摘要 i
Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iii
Ⅰ.Introduction 1
II.Classification of English Contracts 4
III.Traditional Contract 5
A.Features of Lingual Styles of Traditional Contract 6
1.Unusual Length of Sentence 6
2 Dearth of Punctuation 6
3Archaism 7
4Special Terms 7
B Summary of Lingual Styles of Traditional Contract 8
IV.Formal Contract 9
A. Features of Lingual Styles of Formal Contract 9
1.Mixture of Long and Short Sentences 9
2.Full Punctuation 10
3. Less Archaism 10
4. Pervasive Special Terms and Formal Words 10
5.Fewer Words in Pair 11
6. Complicated and Strict Expression 11
B.some Syntactic Features 11
C.Other Features 12
V.Modern Contract 13
A.Features of Lingual Styles of Modem Contract 13
1.Short Sentences 13
2.Full Punctuation 13

3.Fewer Archaic Special and Big Words 13
4.No Paired Words and Complicated and Strict Expressions 14
5.Use of Descriptive Adjectives and Adverbs 14
6. No Omission of Article 14
7.Ungrammatical Capitalization 15
B.Summary of Lingual Styles of Modem Contracts 15
VI Application 16
A.The Approach to solving the Problems 16
B.Prophecy to Development of Lingual Styles of English Contracts 17
VII Conclusion 18
Notes 19
Bibliography 20

Ⅰ.Introduction
A contract is one of the basic social and legal institutions in modern society. A contract frames and coordinates human interactions. It is an agreement that creates,assigns,delegates,and transfers rights and obligations,tangible and intangible goods,services,and entitlements between the contracting parties,relying on their voluntary,rational,and deliberate consent. Today,contractual relationships among persons,communities,organizations,and states emerge as an alternative or at least as an amendatory legal instrument of market coordination and state regulation. A contract binds person to person,person to organization,organization to organization,person to society,person to state,and state to state in private,social,economic,and political affairs.
Since contracts embrace almost all aspects of human affairs from business to marriage,it is difficult to develop a general theory of contract that could provide a normative framework for all human interactions based on various macro- and micro-level,formal and informal,and written and unwritten agreements. Since the theoretical diversities of the notion of contract are rooted in different legal and philosophical traditions,they offer different accounts of its philosophical origin,moral motivations,and practical justification for its prevalence in modern society. Conflicting assessments cause theoretical,doctrinal,and practical tensions and incoherencies in contract law,adjudication,and contractual settlement. Therefore,despite the long and rich intellectual history of philosophical,moral,legal,economic,and political reflections on contract,many contemporary scholars hold that contracts still lack any clear and consistent theoretical foundation. The critical remarks about differing assumptions and interpretations apply equally in civil law countries,where contracts are often justified on moral grounds and given a certain kind of redemptive power in the implementation of a just and well-ordered society,and in common law countries,where the economic analysis of contracts seems to be too narrow in its philosophical and moral foundation.
This entry presents an overview of the basic theoretical concepts of contract from contractarian rights based to consequentialist perspectives (explained hereafter). Instead of making a futile attempt to outline a general theory of contract,this entry will focus instead on how competing approaches and theories endeavor to conceive and explain the basic philosophical ideas underlying contract.
As the era with the termination of the"Cold War"and the tendency of cooperation beckons the integration of global economies．the world has seen an unprecedented boom in international trades．In the course of business transaction,the documents of the greatest importance are contracts,of which a dominant proportion is written in English,(or at least English is used as one language of a bilingual contract)．Because a contract is a legal document and"in some way connected with the imposition of obligations and the conferring of rights"attention will be only paid to,and settlement will be only based on,what the contract declares in case a dispute arises over a transaction and is brought to a court of 1awer arbitration．Therefore a thorough knowledge of an English contract is indispensable to reading it1．
However,the acquisition of the thorough knowledge is a hard nut,because the English used in some contracts is"a language of great complexity and to a layman often obscurity"It may be not too far from the truth to say that to an enormous number of people from non．English．speaking country,who have been learning English for many years,some　English contracts are all Greek．Even a native speaker of English admit．ted"what little bit I can understand"．
Why are people in the street perplexed by some English contracts?I once made questionnaire-investigation which included two samples．One of them was a contract and the other was a letter,but both related to the same affair concerning the hiring of a fiat．The outcomes of the investigation showed that more than 90 percent of the investigates,a11 of whom have learned English at least for more than 8 years were unable to understand the contract fully,but able to comprehend the letter quite well and that the reason for causing the difficulty in reading the contract,in their opinion,was lingual,to be more exactly,syntactical and lexical．
Many scholars and linguists have probed in to the contract English．but they studied it under the general name of legal English and discoursed upon it on the basis of old fashioned contracts．This dissertation is intended therefore to expound the contract English specifically.including the changes of the linguostylistics．The first step is to classify the contracts in to three kinds according to lingual styles．Following that,description and discussion of each kind will be focused on the linguostylistic features and their changes．Finally,it will provide an approach to finding a way which is most suitable to us Chinese.so as to facilitate reading some difficult English contracts in daily practice2．

II .Classification of English Contracts
We frequently mention contracts in various contexts: at work,perhaps employment or therapeutic contracts; at home,possibly in relation to buying,leasing or renting a home,insurance,loans and mortgages,telephone,internet or fuel supply; in our general personal and family living,e.g. legal,financial and other professional advice; and leisure activities,such as joining a gym or booking a holiday. Few of us stop to consider in detail what we actually mean by the term,what actually makes a contract that is legally enforceable. This chapter takes a look at the legal aspects of making,keeping and sometimes breaching contracts,different types of contractual agreements,and the remedies available for breach of the different types of contract. We are not trying here to turn readers into lawyers,but simply provide a road map through ‘the thickets of the law’ to make some common sense of it all and to indicate the potential problem areas. Contract is varied and situation-specific,and if one is in any doubt about a particular contract,legal advice should be sought.
As what has been mentioned above,based on the lingual styles．the English contracts can be basically divided into three kinds：Traditional,formal and modern contracts．The traditional contracts are those that have almost no Dunctuation and the main verb of the first sentence is the verb in archaic from "Witnesseth"and the last paragraph begin with the phrase"in witness whereof".
The formal ones refer to the contracts with many details,such as definitions,relative terms and conditions and with a number of capital anywhere in a sentence．
The standard contracts mean those containing no definitions．The terms and conditions are comparatively fewer and direct,and the text leaves blanks for the parties to fill in．

III .Traditional Contract
The reason why this kind of contracts is regarded as traditional is that,just as the word"traditional"implies,these contracts have a long history．The earliest ones were written on parchment and the activities that this kind of contracts covers chiefly are what could be carried out before the development of international business,such as the hiring orpurchase of a house or a piece of land,or life insurance．The two samples chosen here may be reasonably central and representative in a linguostylistic sense．
Because classical social contract theorists derived the social contract from a prepolitical state of nature and presocial forms of human behavior,opponents of a contractarian view traditionally have questioned using a social contract of specious origins as the philosophical justification for the basic institutions of a fair society. Some contemporary contractarians draw the normative principles of social interactions from a hypothetical social contract that avoids the question of historical origins and presocial forms of human behavior. Other contemporary contractarians think that binding contracts cannot be traced to a hypothetical social contract and individual rights originating from philosophical ideas; they believe that a social contract originates in a rational agreement by members of society. In other words,the normative principles of interpersonal relationships conceptually emerge from the practical procedures of political dialogues that assign individual rights and obligations to promote individual cooperative interactions and set legal and moral constraints on the pursuit of personal interests. Rights-based contract theorists emphasize that the most important principles of the formation of contractual arrangements among individual and institutional contractors are freedom and equity,moral autonomy,fairness,individual well-being,and social utility. They believe that rights should entail these moral and legal constraints on the pursuit of each individual's economic and social interests to motivate and frame all the contractual relationships among members of society. These normative principles are implicitly present in our public morality,legal and political culture providing the legal justification for contract formation,contract law,and adjudication.
A.Features of Lingual Styles of Traditional Contract
1.Unusual Length of Sentence
After a look at the two samples has been taken,what is conjured upfirst may be that the sentences which make up the s